Paradise Under Your Feet — Page 157
Appendix 2: Waqf-e-Nau 157 8) Education and training of the Waqifin-e-Nau: a) Vast and Broad-based Knowledge: Give your Waqifin an extensive secular education so that their knowledge can be vast. Hazrat Khalifatul-Masih IV (rh) advised parents: “ We should encourage and popularize religious learning founded on broad-based knowledge. That is, first of all, the foundation should be a broad knowledge of secular subjects to which religious knowledge should then be grafted so that it grows into a very beautiful, blessed and holy tree. From this point of view, these children should be encouraged to increase their general knowledge right from childhood. If the parents pay attention to this matter, their children ’ s knowledge will increase automatically. Parents should pay attention to it and subscribe to magazines and newspapers for their children. They should instill in them the habit of reading books that will increase their knowledge and when they go to school, parents should choose such subjects for them that will introduce them to science. ” 9) These children should have some knowledge of all the diverse subjects of arts such as economics, philosophy, psychology, mathematics, and commerce, history of nations and geography of different countries, etc. a) Learning Languages: Waqf-e-Nau children need to deliver the message of Islam to the world, so the Jama ’ at needs linguist Waqifin , who are skilled in writing, speaking and those who are also good at translation and literary work. Hazrat Khalifatul-Masih IV (rh) considered it compulsory for all Waqifin-e-Nau to learn a minimum of three languages, including Arabic and Urdu. Knowledge of Arabic helps one understand the Holy Qur ’ an and Ahadith; while knowledge of Urdu is helpful in understanding books of the Promised